The travel subsidy for teams in the 2020 AFC Cup has been increased from $20,000 to $40,000: https://www.the-afc.com/afc/documents/PDFFiles/afc-cup-2020-competition-regulations North Korea has no representations either, so it's a good chance for Hong Kong teams to top the East Asia Zone. In addition to North Korea, teams from Afghanistan, Yemen, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Nepal and Pakistan will not be featuring.
AFC have released new schedules for both the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup. The remaining group stage matches are set to be played in centralised venues. "The venues for the centralised groups to be used for both the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup are to be confirmed. All of the planned group stage matches will be played in full while the knock-out rounds will now consist of single match ties (rather than home & away), as will the Final of both competitions." https://www.the-afc.com/documents/afc-cup-2020-revised-match-schedule
It is weird they require double round-robin in centralised venue format. It takes too many matchdays in short time.
The correct call, ultimately. I hope next year this tournament is going to be restructured. This format has stagnated the competitiveness, with largely the same clubs from each confederation slogging it out against each other year after year.